


Staying Together

by hellostarlight20



Series: Tentoo x Rose [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bad Wolf Bay, F/M, Hope, Light Angst, Post Bad Wolf Bay, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 09:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5123114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose and her new new new Doctor after Bad Wolf Bay redux and what they really have to offer each other in this new new new life of theirs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staying Together

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for the TenToo x Rose month. Theme: Post-Bad Wolf Bay.
> 
> Week 1 (1st-8th): Post Bad Wolf Bay/ Getting Older  
> Week 2 (8-15):Kids/ Place of Residence  
> Week 3 (15-22): Family on a trip/ Jobs  
> Week 4 (22-29): Holiday/ Pets  
> Nov 30th: Anything goes!

“I um…I don’t have.” Rose paused and swallowed hard.

This wasn’t how she envisioned The Day After. The Day After One Saved the Multiverse, one was supposed to be living out her dreams (fantasies) and traveling in the TARDIS with the Doctor—in the other universe.

One was not.

She frowned. Or maybe she was. After all, she was with the Doctor. The new new new Doctor.

They even had a chunk of TARDIS coral to work with. So in theory, and given a bit of time to grow the new TARDIS, she actually _could_ be traveling in the TARDIS with the Doctor. She drew in a deep breath and flexed her fingers around the Doctor’s hold.

Had they let go of each other since leaving that cursed beach? No. Rose wasn’t certain she’d be able to. She certainly didn’t want to.

Pete sent a Torchwood SUV with a driver—Pennington she thought—to Norway when he learned Jackie and Mickey followed her across dimensions. Pennington drove them to the nearest zeppelin-port where they then endured the nearly three hour flight to London.

Mickey patented several upgrades to zeppelin technology that made the lumbering beasts nearly as fast as airplanes. She agreed with Mickey when he signed the patents over to Tony, when he decided to stay in the other universe.

She’d never see her friend again now. Anger swamped her grief and Rose hoped either the Doctor or Donna told him, all of them, what happened.

Told her friends what _the other Doctor decided._

She didn’t want Mickey or Jack or Sarah Jane, or any of them thinking she ran off with the Doctor and never bothered to keep in touch.

Then again, did they already know? Did they see this new new new Doctor and come to the conclusion she hadn’t until the man whose hand she held like a lifeline whispered the words she longed to hear?

Rose took a deep breath and slowly released it. She looked past the Doctor for a brief moment. London scenery sped by in the dreary November rain. The temperature had normalized, not quite as warm as when she first arrived.

“Rose?” the Doctor asked and shifted until he faced her more fully.

Now on the other side of the North Sea, they headed away from the zeppelin-port in one SUV—Pennington and Jackie in front, and she and the Doctor in back. One SUV with two sets of prying eyes and eavesdroppers no matter how inadvertent.

Rose lowered her voice even further and inched closer. Hoped his hearing was still Time Lord enough that he heard her.

“I um, I don’t, I mean I wasn’t planning on,” she stopped again. Closed her eyes and felt the Doctor’s hand squeeze around hers in silent understanding.

Rose opened her eyes and admitted in a rush of whispered words, “I wasn’t expecting to return to this world, you know? And I don’t…I mean I didn’t renew my lease. I don’t have anywhere to live.”

The Doctor nodded, lips forming a silent _Oh._ But then he shrugged. “I’m sure we can find a hotel room,” he whispered back.

His still-cool breath caressed her temple and Rose shivered. He didn’t pull back but she felt him stiffen and cursed herself. Too soon? Not what he wanted…but no. He wouldn’t have said he loved her _(I love you, Rose Tyler, enough for two universes)_ if he hadn’t wanted.

He wouldn’t have kissed her. (The memory of that kiss still tingled along her lips even now, hours later.)

That beautiful kiss where he pulled her tight to him and held on as if he’d never let go.

She cleared her throat. “Hotel, yes. Not too domestic.”

And nearly kicked herself for the thoughtless words. So much for the witty quip she wanted to say. But words refused to form, clogged her throat even as sentiments, emotion, _love_ , flooded though her.

So much to say yet she had no idea where to begin.

“No,” he agreed with a breath of laughter. “Not too domestic. I imagine we’ll be fine for a night, you and me. Slept in worse places, yeah?”

Rose relaxed. Marginally. “Yeah.” She nodded. “Except I don’t have anything.”

She pulled back just enough to see him and watched the depth of understanding darken his eyes. Rose nodded and forced words past the lump.

“Once more I literally have the clothes on my back.” The joke fell flat—or was that the flatness of her voice? “I don’t have anything. Gave it all away.”

Stupid. Foolish. Thinking (hoping, believing) things would return to the way they were.

Or maybe they were…she didn’t know. The day was more than a little topsy-turvy and she didn’t know what to expect or think or believe any more. Except his hand in hers.

“Oh.” He cleared his throat and lifted his hand from where he twirled a lock of her hair around his finger to tug his ear.

Her heart flipped at the familiar sight.

“I did manage to—” He cut himself off and looked to the front seat.

Both Jackie and Pennington looked straight ahead but somehow also leaned back just slightly enough. As if trying to hear what she and the Doctor said.

“Hmph.” He cleared his throat. Rubbed the back of his neck. Squeezed her hand and offered a slight smile, the merest upturn of his lips.

Rose clearly saw in his dark, serious gaze he’d tell her later. She nearly melted against him at the familiarity between them. She worried they’d have to start from the beginning. She’d hoped to pick up where—or near to where—they left off when… 

“One night,” she promised. “One night at the mansion. I’m knackered; don’t really remember the last time I slept.” She frowned and added, “Days ago, I think. One night and we’ll…figure the rest out.”

“Agreed.”

And his smile, that lopsided smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes sent her heart to pounding in a wild rhythm she hadn’t expected.

 ********  
The Doctor greeted Pete well enough. Listened to Jackie launch into domestics. Showed Tony his sonic screwdriver.

And never released her hand.

Even while they ate a late dinner and Tony stared at him—and Pete tried not to and Mum took it far better than she had the first time he regenerated—the Doctor held her hand, rested their joined fingers on his thigh. Rose had never been so grateful for that grounding touch in her life.

“We’ll take the guest room,” Rose said deliberately.

“Rose, you know—”

She interrupted her mum with a sharp look and a quick shake of her head. “We’ll be in a guest room,” she said more forcefully.

Jackie huffed, but Rose ignored her. She didn’t want to have this discussion now, let alone in front of everyone, and she certainly didn’t want to sleep in the bedroom her mum kept here.

Rose tugged the Doctor’s hand and headed up the steps.

“What was that all about?” he asked as she turned left instead of right.

“Mum keeps a bedroom for me here,” she admitted.

Best start off with honesty and all.

“But you don’t want to sleep there?” the Doctor guessed.

“It’s right next to Tony’s and just down the hall from mum’s,” she admitted. “Don’t want them to hear anything.”

And stopped dead in the hallway. Horrified with how her words sounded, she whirled and shook her head.

“No. I mean, I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t expect anything to happen,” she rushed on, embarrassment flushing her cheeks. “I just meant I thought you’d, and well I wanted some privacy, and—”

The Doctor chuckled and tugged her against him. He hugged her tight, chin resting atop her head. His single heart beat beneath her ear, an oddly comforting sound though she was unused to it. Waited for the echo of a second heartbeat, that never came.

“I know.” The words sounded as if they hurt to say and Rose leaned back and looked up at him. “I know, Rose. I understand. It’s…” the Doctor trailed off and took a deep breath. Then shook his head. “I understand.”

Rose rested her head back on his chest. “Yeah,” she agreed.

Eventually they broke apart and walked the few feet remaining to the bedroom Rose staked out. The very last one at the farthest end of the hallway. She used the bathroom first and, clad in the same jeans and top she wore for _days_ , waited in the middle of the room for him.

Who cared her clothes needed washing. Or she needed more than a quick wash for that matter. But Rose hadn’t wanted to take but a few minutes apart from the Doctor and she sure as hell didn’t want to venture to the family wing and find appropriate sleeping attire.

She didn’t want to venture into the family wing at all tonight.

She and the Doctor needed alone time. It was just their poor luck they were in the Tyler Family Home trying to find that time.

Her heart raced and her mind jumped from topic to topic. Would he feel the same against her? Would his hand curl over her stomach like it always had?

Would he even want to sleep together?

She looked from the bed to the sofa and back again. Waited, tapped her fingers on her thigh and shifted from foot to foot. Half of her expected to fall into their routine from…before. But that was years ago and miles behind her. Them.

The Doctor exited, carrying the TARDIS coral and clad only in his trousers, feet bare. She licked her lips at the sight, at the reminder of how he looked. The same. The same as in her memories.

Fantasies they never explored.

“I didn’t know if you wanted to…” she cleared her throat. “I mean we don’t have to,” she rushed to say. “But I didn’t know if you wanted to share the same sleeping arrangements as, well, as—” she waved a hand at the sofa— “before.”

She hadn’t been this nervous around the Doctor since that first night. When she’d fallen asleep in the library because she hadn’t a bedroom. (Yet.) They’d been running—from her London all the way to the end of the Earth and she needed a nap.

She’d fallen asleep and dreamt of the expanding sun searing her flesh, burning her alive through the windows of that observatory. Its deadly rays following her, leaping from place to place as it tried to scorch her.

Her second life and death experience.

The Doctor found her and woke her from the nightmare. That night, gruff as he’d been, the Doctor stripped off his leather jacket and lay behind her on the library sofa. Held her tight against his chest as she slept.

Even when she had a bedroom, used for clothes and showers, they slept like that. Rose and the Doctor slept on the sofa in the library, her pulled tight to his chest, his arm draped over her stomach, hand curled loosely against her, legs tangled.

She hadn’t always woken with him still there. Or she’d woken because he had a nightmare and comforted him. But they always, _always_ , fell asleep together. Together on the extra wide couch in a small niche in the library.

“I ah, yes. I mean, I’d love to,” the Doctor rushed to say. “I hadn’t thought about it, to be honest. Just assumed…but you know what they say about assuming.” He shook his head, scrubbed a hand through his already wild hair. “Shouldn’t have assumed.”

“Oh, good,” Rose said with all the relief she felt. “Wait. That was a yes.” She tilted her head up at him and hurried to clarify. “Wasn’t it? I mean it was a yes to sleeping on the sofa together...yes?”

The Doctor nodded and offered her that wide grin again. “Oh, yes.” Then he frowned and eyed her. “Not your normal sleepwear,” he pointed out.

Rose shrugged. “Didn’t have anything in this room and don’t want to go back into the other room to look.”

Her mum was no doubt lying in wait thinking the same thing.

“Ah.” He nodded, and she watched him tear his gaze from her body. She swore she saw hunger in his eyes, there and gone in a beat.

“Here,” he said, voice lower now, huskier.

He held out his maroon shirt. Not as long as his oxford’s, not that Rose had ever worn any of his shirts. Suit jacket yes; his long brown suede coat, yes. But never something as intimate as his clothes.

Rose gratefully took it. She bit her lower lip and wondered—back to the bathroom to change? Or do it right here?

Before... _before_ , she’d changed in front of him. They hadn’t had a sexual relationship, no, but she’d been comfortable with him, so very comfortable and confident with him. Rose breathed deep, smelled his scent—that unique _Doctor_ scent she had no words to describe and missed so very much—and made her decision.

She tugged her top up and tossed it on the bed with the rest of the Doctor’s clothes. Casually, though it was anything but, Rose walked to the bed, back toward him, while unclasping her bra. She slipped the t-shirt over her head and let the soft material caress her skin.

Swallowing a sigh, Rose tugged off her jeans and added them to the pile. Eyes closed, she took one final deep breath, and turned back around to face him.

He closed the distance between them and, eyes on hers, set the TARDIS coral on the bed next to their clothes. Then he took her hand. Grounded once more, and still fighting anticipation and excitement, Rose twined their fingers tightly together.

Hand in hand, as they’d done so many things, they walked to the sofa in the sitting room. The Doctor pulled the duvet off the bed and dragged it with them. It didn’t take them long to arrange themselves on the piece of furniture, facing each other, the Doctor’s bare chest beneath her fingertips.

Resting her head on his arm, body stretched out along his long, lean one, Rose looked up and watched his brown eyes. The flecks of lighter brown that spoke of seeing too much. And darker brown, almost black, that pulled her in, drew her to him.

“Even your eyes are the same,” she whispered. “Except your heart. Everything else is still Time Lord?”

“So far,” he agreed just as quietly. “I can’t regulate my temperature to the degree I used to.”

“No more cool bodies in the desert heat?” Her lips curved in a slow grin. “Where were we? That desert planet when we got lost and needed to spend the heat of the day in the alley.”

“Sevaln,” he whispered. The Doctor brushed her hair behind her ear, let his fingers linger.

Rose shivered and closed her eyes. The memory of his touch didn’t compare to the feel of his still-cooler fingers on her skin. Of his body lined against hers.

“Did you and Jackie fight?” he asked, fingers still brushing through her hair, breath still cool on her cheek.

“I expect her to say I told you so,” Rose admitted in the hush of the darkened bedroom. “To tell me how stupid I was to think I could go back. That things could be like they used to be between us. You and me.” She stopped and frowned. “Other you? And me...”

But the Doctor merely nodded. “She didn’t want you to leave,” he said. An observation not a question.

Rose sighed again. “She understood finding you because of the stars going out,” she started slowly. “But when she realized I planned to stay there with you...Mum wasn’t happy. Thought I made a life here. Had my own flat, worked at a prestigious job, had friends.”

“Yeah?” he whispered. “Who are your friends?”

Rose grimaced around a smile. “Mickey, who’s now in the other universe,” she said pointedly. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Not your fault.”

Not this Doctor’s fault.

The Doctor frowned and looked into the distance. “No, I suppose not.” He refocused on her and tried a smile. “But I’m still sorry.”

Rose nodded, then shook her head. She had no idea how to respond to that. Not now, not tonight, their first night together. Or back together. Or...she didn’t even know.

“And Jake,” she continued her short list of friends. “Jake’s new boyfriend Isaiah. Doctor Malcolm Taylor.”

The Doctor’s eyebrow rose high on his forehead. “Were they all part of the dimension project?”

“Yeah,” she admitted a little embarrassed. Her entire friendship circle consisted of people working on the project intended to reunite she and the Doctor.

“Mum wanted me to stay here—home. We screamed at each other, me telling her you and the TARDIS were my home and her not caring.” Rose shook her head. “No, she cares. I know she does. But she doesn’t understand.”

He tugged her closer, pushed the duvet lower around their waists. Rose rested her head on his chest, a familiar and foreign place to be. How many nights had they slept like this?

“One thousand and seventy-two nights,” the Doctor breathed into her hair. “Every single night since you came onboard.”

“I missed it,” Rose said instead of asking if she said that aloud. Clearly she had. “I missed you.”

“I didn’t sleep for weeks after you...after the...” He cleared his throat. Tightened his hands on her hips. “ _After_. Couldn’t. Not without you there.”

He sniffed but she didn’t move, didn’t look at him. Blinked back her own tears. And held him all the tighter.

“A week after,” she admitted slowly, “I finally slept. Couldn’t stay awake, my body finally shut down. Had terrible nightmares about the Void.” She swallowed hard and whispered, “I don’t sleep much anymore.”

“I haven’t gone into the library since...since that day,” the Doctor said, words a breath of sound against her temple.

His hand drifted down her spine, up again. Slowly over and over. His trousers scratched her bare legs and despite the duvet, and the fact they slept like this a thousand times—literally—she felt exposed. Not uncomfortable, just open and bare to the Doctor in a way she hadn’t ever been before.

Rose closed her eyes but the tears slipped out anyway. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and held onto him. Silently cried for what had been and never would be again. For second chances. For hope.

“We’ll be okay?” she whispered into his skin. Not sure if it was a question or statement.

“Rose Tyler.” His arms tightened around her. “We’ll always be okay. We’ll figure it out, I promise.”

“Where to stay?” she asked.

She didn’t have to see his face to know he grinned widely. She heard it in his voice. “Everything. I do love you.”

Rose pulled back then. She hadn’t realized how badly she needed those words until he repeated them. How mere words, and his honest feeling behind them, soothed the deep gouges in her soul and the holes in her heart.

The uncertainty that tightened around her even as the Doctor’s arms held her so securely.

“I love you too, Doctor.” She pressed her lips to his. “Always.”


End file.
